


Wait Like the Moon

by orphan_account



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon Compliant (loosely), Gen, M/M, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28196124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Donna spends exactly an eighth of a day in her new office in the East Wing, which is big and beautiful and definitely worth more than the three hours she sits in there, before Josh ruins everything.
Relationships: Josh Lyman & Donna Moss, Josh Lyman/Sam Seaborn
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Wait Like the Moon

Donna spends exactly an eighth of a day in her new office in the East Wing, which is big and beautiful and definitely worth more than the three hours she sits in there, before Josh ruins everything. It starts with a call from Lou’s office in the EEOB, which Donna only half-listens to before she catches on to, “- _where did that idiot go - I swear I’m going to kill him -”_ and realizes what Lou’s talking about. 

“Josh’s missing,” Lou says, finally. “No one’s seen him since yesterday.” From anyone else, it would sound worried, but this is Lou, so she just sounds irritated. Donna knows the feeling too well herself, but she’s gotten better at disguising it over the years. 

“Have you checked around here?” she asks. “He might be lurking. Or maybe he’s actually gone off of the deep-end and Santos needs to start looking at resumes?” She’s only partly joking. Josh’s not exactly ever been a sane sort of guy, but at least she could take comfort in the fact that he managed to thread the line between crazy enough to try and completely insane. Everyone’s got to be kind of crazy in this line of work. 

But the election’s chipped away at Josh, more than re-election and the first campaign had, and she wonders how much of it is the fact that he’d struck out alone. Well, not alone - Donna did spend some memorable nights hiding his laptop so he wouldn’t keep checking election forecasts - but alone enough. Leo’s death had only escalated it, though to be fair, Donna’s not sure if that sort of thing ever really disappears. Josh had spent the rest of election night keyed up as hell; it’d only been when Donna had looked at him somewhere around 3 am that she’d noticed his eyes were wet. 

“I sent up a couple of aides and everyone says he’s not there. CJ Cregg told me that if she finds him, she’ll personally kick his ass. Something about President Liang and Santos making calls.” _Damn right,_ Donna adds in her head, as she readjusts the phone so it doesn’t jut into her jawline. She sighs and says, “Okay, I’ll try calling his place and his cell, and I’ll meet you at the EEOB if I come up empty.” 

Lou’s talking to someone else - Donna can hear the low tones of another person’s voice - but she gets back on around thirty seconds later. “Okay, fine. But if you do find him, I reserve the right to interrogate him first.”

“Be my guest,” Donna says easily. 

***

None of the calls go through, and Donna resists the urge to clog up Josh’s voicemail. She's more worried than anything anyway. At some point, she catches Helen Santos, who’s been waiting for her to summarize the info dump that Abbey Bartlet’s staff had given Donna yesterday. After Donna briefs her, she explains the whole Josh situation, which Helen gives her near-exasperated smiles at. That’s a constant with anyone that knows Josh - near exasperation that morphs into fondness before you even know what happened. Or it devolves into a burning sense of loathing. It depends.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, apologetically, and Helen shakes her head. 

“There's ten weeks until we have to actually get going, Donna,” she replies. “Spending one day to find Josh Lyman won’t derail us.”

“I don’t know; Josh’s pretty good at that sort of thing - he wouldn’t work without it. He once told a senator to shove it, you know,” Donna replies and the memory is so old that it’s almost soft, but she smiles at it all the same. “In - ah - less delicate terms.” 

Helen’s eyebrows have shot up, but she doesn’t sound surprised when she says, “I wouldn’t expect any less.” It’s one of the things that Donna likes about her - it’s part of the reason that she’d said yes to all of this when Helen had asked her. 

***

Lou says, “He left me a message,” lips pursed. She’s unofficially in charge of comms - Donna figures that if (when) Josh shows up from wherever he's hiding that it’ll only be a matter of time before it turns official. “He said that he called you too?”

Donna fishes in her bag for her phone before sifting through her missed calls, finding Josh’s number at the bottom. She reads it, blinks for a moment, then rereads it. “He called me at - 6 am? I’m pretty sure I was asleep. I think.” Donna’s used to waking up before there’s even a hint of sun, but she’s been trying to catch up on some sleep before things get crazy in January. It’s done wonders for her caffeine intake. 

“Well, apparently he’s in California, so it’s probably still morning where he is. Lucky him. I guess I’m calling off the search party.” Lou adds, fixing her glasses, and the nonchalance in her tone lets her words slide by Donna before it actually registers. “Did you just say California?”

“Yep,” Lou says. “I mean, it’s been an irregular shape on a map for long enough. I think it deserves its name back. What the _hell_ is Josh doing in California?” 

Donna offhandedly thinks that she’ll probably have to fight Lou on interrogation rights when Josh gets back, because there’s definitely going to be some stern talking-tos on her end. Maybe. 

If he gets Sam back, maybe she’ll go easy on him. She’ll have to - seeing Sam again will probably wring Josh through at least a little, and Donna doesn’t have the heart to do the rest. The thought doesn’t surprise her as much as she thinks, turning it over. Josh doesn’t have a deputy and he definitely needs one, if he doesn’t actually want to go insane. Sam’s always been tuned to Josh’s ebb and flow in a way most people would find borderline alarming. The fact that she’s aware of Josh’s unresolved feelings about Sam is only more reason, though he’s always been good at shoving that sort of thing down where it’s nearly impossible to find. It’d taken her four years and the 47th to figure it out and three and a half more for him to say anything about to her. She wishes he’d stop doing that to himself, but masochism has always been one of Josh’s talents. 

It’s also the fact that she’s missed Sam, and having him here when she’s only really had phone calls and late-night emails because of mismatched time zones would be the cherry on top. Donna’s never been sure of Sam’s end on the whole unresolved feelings thing, but nothing really surprises her anymore. 

“Josh’s getting a deputy chief of staff,” she tells Lou, who gives her an apprehensive look.

“Seriously? I mean, I get it, but - he went MIA for seven hours for that?”

“I mean, it is Sam we’re presumably talking about,” Donna says and Lou pauses, before she replies, “Sam _Seaborn?_ The speechwriter? The guy who used to be Deputy Communications Director under Bartlet? Josh is trying to kill me, isn’t he? Just tell me now - it'll hurt less.”

"If Sam gives you criticism, it’ll be in the nicest form possible. He’ll give you a smiley face in red pen under all his edits,” Donna remarks, even though she’s pretty certain that Lou will personally ensure that Sam can't get into comms by a mile.

But she’s thinking in future tense, thinking in assumptions, and Donna stops it because she might be wrong. Josh’s always had unpredictability on his side.

***

She isn’t wrong. Hearing Josh’s voicemail, time-stamped 6:03 pm - afternoon in California, Donna figures while earmarking something about policy and agenda - all she thinks of is what Sam must have said. Yes. No. Maybe? Or maybe he’s overthinking. Sam’s always been good at that. 

***

Donna’s already there, leaning on the wall next to Josh’s door when he finally shows up. He takes one look at her and then says, “Look, if you’re going to give me shit, can you do it quickly?” 

Josh looks even worse than he did yesterday, but he’s never weathered jet lag well. His voice sounds like he’d intended to be cutting, but all he sounds is tired. Tired of everything. It’s enough for her to say, “We could take it inside and over whatever’s on primetime.” It’s maybe 10:30 at night - she has no clue what’s on TV right now. 

“Yeah, ok,” he says after a pause, and it sounds a shade more grateful than he’d probably intended to. 

***

“So he didn’t say no,” Donna says, over a glass of wine. It burns down her throat, and she’s sure that Josh probably had it with the intention of getting wildly drunk on election night before things spiraled. “That’s a good sign. Lou says that if he comes, she’s keeping all her staff away from him.”

Josh raises his glass in acknowledgment, before saying, “Sam said he’d think about it. Definitely not a yes, either.”

“I’m sure your powers of persuasion are just as strong as you remember,” she replies, wry, but he doesn’t smile. Donna hasn’t seen him smile for a long time. 

“I think being engaged is a pretty big reason to say no, Donna,” Josh says, staring at some point ahead, tone absolutely flat. He’s trying to hide something, Donna realizes, and they’ve known each other for a long time, but this is almost a habit. She shuts her eyes and counts to three in her head, before she says, “I know.”

There’s a long pause, and Donna starts counting again, sipping some more of the wine because she isn’t sure she wants to see the look on Josh’s face. 

“You - you know?” His voice verges on an actual emotion other than exhaustion for the first time that night. 

“Your four years of silence didn’t transfer, you know,” Donna says evenly, and then falters because it’s probably worse for him hearing this the second time around. And she loves Josh - loves him because he’s passionate and irritating mixed up with something right - loves him because he’s her best friend, even after all of this - so she gentles her voice. “He told me three months ago. We were busy, you were busy - a lot of things were going on, Josh.”

He’s quiet for a long time, before he says, “I don’t know why I asked him.” Donna knows that it’s not the logical reasons why, because Josh always knows the logic behind why he does things, even if it's a particular brand that only makes sense to him. It’s the _why did i get on a plane to see him after four years_ why. 

“Yes, you do,” she says because she knows that he wants her to tell the truth and Donna loves him too much to lie. Josh gives her half a laugh, dried out and sad, before he downs the rest of his glass.

“Yeah, you’re right.” 


End file.
